Thursday Morning Update | Ole Miss Sports

From the mother ship, Brandon Speck is keeping up with the recruitment of Itawamba AHS running back Ashton Shumpert this season and had an update earlier this week. There are a lot of schools’ on Shumpert’s radar, including Ole Miss, MSU and Vanderbilt.

From Knoxville, there are good vibes coming out of the media-restricted Tennessee camp, but columnist Bob Gilbert isn’t buying in with the Vols just yet.

Gilbert writes about the cumulative failure of several Tennessee coaches – including former coach Lane Kiffin – for the Vols’ worst slide in a century. Kiffin has recovered nicely, however, from his abrupt Tennessee departure and has quickly guided Southern Cal out of the wilderness and back to a position of competing – perhaps being the favorite – for the national championship.

Of course, when you’re talking Lane Kiffin, former Ole Miss coach Ed Orgeron is never far away. He was with Kiffin for that one season in Knoxville and is back at USC, the place he left to coach the Rebels. The Trojans are getting a lot of attention these days for their offense more than their defensive line. Ed says his group will have to be a work in progress.

Elsewhere …

There were questions about the shoulder of Missouri quarterback James Franklin, which required off-season surgery, but his play in camp has put to rest many of those concerns.

Staying with the quarterbacks theme, it looks like Texas has picked one … at least a starter. Sometimes things change by the third game – when Texas visits Ole Miss – but it appears David Ash has edged out Case McCoy, at least for now. There are those in Austin, though, who wish the Longhorns had landed Franklin some time ago.